Twenty three is number one
by Emerald-Shadow-Knight
Summary: Now, it's Kalas' turn to play the game. You'll understand the title when you read the story.


It's Halloween, and that means a Halloween story!

To celebrate the recent release of Saw VI and Halloween coming up, I crossed over one of the Baten Kaitos characters with one of the Saw games (If you've seen the second one in the flashback of the first movie, you'll know for sure)

Key:

regular text- regular dialogue

_italic text- _Kalas thinking

**bold text**- Jigsaw (or "Billy") "talking"

* * *

The last thing Kalas remembered before blacking out was being at the party. Dancing, drinking, flirting with pretty girls, the time of his life. He and his friends had defeated the evil god, and celebrating the joyous event.

But now...now he was waking up in the middle of a strange room. Waking up alone, naked, and covered in some strange substance. It felt as though someone had taken a hammer to his head. And not the toy kind of hammer either. He tried to see his surroundings. Looked like a room with nothing in it. Nothing except a safe next to him, with two candles, one lit and one unused, and a tape recorder on top. A dim light glowed in the middle of the ceiling, revealing faint numbers.

_Is this some really complicated prank? Well, it ain't funny, _Kalas thought. Crawling over to the safe, he grabbed the tape recorder and turned it over. A paper taped to the back read 'play me'.

_What are you, some Alice in Wonderland reject?_ Shaking off this dumb idea, Kalas followed the short instruction the paper said, and pressed Play. The voice that played sent a chill down his spine unlike any other.

**"Hello, Kalas,"**the chilling voice said. **"I want to play a game. Tell me, do you love to party?"**

Though he knew this was merely a recording, and that he would not really be answered, Kalas nodded anyway, too freaked out to speak.

**"Do you love that you are surrounded by beautiful women, and begin to feel the, how shall I say it, burning in your loins?" **(A/N: Yeah, let's hear Jigsaw say that last part. xD)

Starting to get uncomfortable with the weird question, Kalas nodded again.

**"Well, today, you may feel the burning all over your body. Do you see two candles? Pick up the unused one."**

Kalas did so, unsure what the candle had to do with anything. The recording continued.

**"There are numbers written throughout the walls. The numbers you need can only be seen by flame. These numbers are the numbers you need to open the safe. You must put them in the correct order to open the safe. Do so, and you will obtain the key that will open the door to your freedom."**

_So, find the numbers and put them in the right order, and open the safe. Got it. Not a problem._

**"Oh, by the way. The substance you're covered in? It's flammable. Take too long and the candle will burn down to the point you will catch fire. I suggest finding the numbers as quick as possible. Oh, and one number is fake. Find what number is apart from the others, and you should be able to figure it out quickly."**

The hissing sound that followed meant that the recording had ended. Kalas was left with this task. He put the recorder down and looked around wondering where to start looking.

_This guy didn't tell me where to start. _Lighting the candle he was holding, he walked to the wall that looked like it had the fewest numbers on it, the wall with the iron door. He put the flame close to the wall, and found the first number, 19.

_Okay, so 19. _He did the same to the next wall, finding the next number, a 4. Looking solely at the numbers and walls, Kalas didn't realize the light in the middle of the ceiling had gone out, and his candle was starting to melt. He took his own sweet time, attempting to remain calm under pressure, knowing his life was on the line. Eventually, he found the last two numbers, 33 and 26.

Getting back to the safe, Kalas thought of the four numbers, 19, 4, 33, and 26, and tried to figure out which was the fake. He just now noticed both lights, the dim bulb and the candle, had now gone out, which would mean if he wanted to see the numbers, he would have to keep the candle he had lit. Unfortunately, his candle was about a fourth melted. That meant he was starting to run out of time.

Kalas racked his brain for any ideas on which was the fake number. He didn't know what could possibly be the one unneeded one. He decided to put them in numerical order.

_4, 19, 26, 33. So which one's the fake one?_ He tried to see the pattern to the numbers, but they were all random numbers to him. No pattern whatsoever. Unless...

Something was up about the 4. It didn't fit the pattern. All the other numbers were apart by seven. The 4 was separated from 19 by 15. That meant the 4 was the fake number.

Okay, so the 4 was eliminated. That left the other three numbers. So what was the combination to the safe? Kalas tried to see any order.

_Okay, so...better go by smallest to largest. _He went 19, 26, 33. Nothing. The safe didn't open.

_Maybe...largest to smallest? _33, 26, 19. That didn't work, either. Kalas tried all possible combinations, and by this time, the candle was half melted. He started to panic. He tried to think of some order that could work.

_1, 2, 3? No, I tried that already. 3, 2, 1? No, that was wrong, too. What is it?! 3, 1, 2? 2, 3, 1? Wait. 2, 3, 1! Twenty-three is number 1!"_

Kalas put it in the order 26, 33, 19, all the while inwardly praying and pretty much saying, _come on, come on. Please be the right ones! I'm almost out of candle here!_

And there was the confirming click of the correct combination.

_Yes! I did it!_

He opened the safe door and got the key, walking to the door and inserting the key into the lock. Before pushing open the heavy iron door, he blew out the candle, which was just about gone. The room in complete darkness, he opened the door with a shove and walked out into a lit hallway.

All he saw was a table with his clothes and a towel on it. He was approaching them when he heard a squeaking noise. He turned to see a strange puppet-like creature coming toward him on a bicycle. It had a white face with red spirals on the cheeks. It opened its mouth and spoke with the same scary voice as the one on the tape recorder.

**"Congratulations. You're still alive. Most people are so ungrateful to be alive, but not you. Not anymore. Tell me, isn't it wonderful to be alive?"**

Kalas only nodded. He just wanted to get out of here. Then, the puppet turned and left him alone again. Kalas watched it pedal back to where it appeared from, and muttered, "Creepy" under his breath when it was finally gone.

After it disappeared into the darkness, he cleaned off the flammable substance, got dressed, and walked toward the exit, toward freedom. When he got back, the party would surely be over, and everyone would probably be asleep. He would have to think up a story as to why he was gone from the festivities.

Because he promised himself this.

He would not tell them that on this day, at the hands of the infamous Jigsaw, he had almost lost the thing that was possibly most precious to him.

His life.

* * *

References:

The beginning paragraph; That's if you beat Baten Kaitos: Eternal Wings and the Lost Ocean, so slight spoilers.

The scenario; Remember the first Saw film? The one guy who had to do pretty much the same thing Kalas did? That's what it is. Only difference is that if you remember, the guy in the movie died, and Kalas lived (I don't remember the guy's name.)

Why 4 was the fake number; 2 reasons, actually. It's the only single digit (The other three are double digits) and it's an outlier. The other three are in order by increments of seven.

"Twenty-three is number 1"; You might get this if you've played Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time (the first dungeon. It's the order you have to hit the Scrubs, pretty much). Kalas was going by the number in the tens places (2, 3, 1.)

That should be it. Questions? Tell me.

Oh, yes. Happy Halloween. :)


End file.
